The Difference between Responsive and Adaptive Designs

Drupal it’s part of our job to keep up-to-date with the latest design trends. One of the most heated debates in recent times has been how best to cater for multiple screen types in the brave new world of multi-format Internet.

Up until recently, all sites were fixed designs, rigid in their presentation. Now we have responsive and adaptive designs which shift web page elements so as to be functionally viewable across a number of screen formats.
Separate Sites

When you approach a solutions provider like Drupal, it’s important that you communicate the nature and goals of your business so that the best tailored approach can be arrived at. One solution to the problem of multiple screen formats has been to create two separate sites, both fixed. If you click on the site using a traditional laptop or PC browser you find the original design. If you click on it through a phone you get redirected to a mobile version.

Adaptive Sites

With adaptive design you have a single site. Depending on your screen type, the content will arrange itself according to fixed templates. There are drawbacks. Because these designs essentially use static layouts set to designated breakaways, you come up against that same problem of rigidity.

Responsive

Responsive design is sometimes referred to as fluid design, but there’s more to it than that. Video, text and images resize and shift according to grids so as to accommodate different screen sizes. For instance, text can shrink or wrap around images. Responsive sites are not simply fluid. They also have adaptive features. As their templates allow for different resolutions, pixel densities, screen sizes etc. they have an edge on purely adaptive sites. Drupal Web Development, takes all design innovations into account when planning a web presence for your company.